Learning The (7th Grade) Language

WORDS FROM W.W.January 26, 2020

“Learning The (7th Grade) Language”

I never was very good at foreign languages. Being from Southern Ohio/Eastern Kentucky was like learning a second language in some ways, y’all know what I mean? It still was close enough to normal English that made it understandable. Spanish and Latin were my other attempts at learning a new language in high school and college. Let me just say that neither of them did much for my grade point average…well, except lower it!

Now I’m about to begin a new course of foreign language study: 7th Grade Language Arts. Okay, maybe it’s not technically a foreign language, but it is 7th Grade! That’s like a trip to a country located on the equator, full of smells and perspiration, unpredictable lunch combinations and wardrobe mistakes.

On Monday I begin an eight week teaching assignment with this interesting tour of kids that Triple A hasn’t created a road map for yet. I’ve substitute taught several days in the past three years for seventh graders, but they’ve been mostly one-and-done experiences. If I can learn this seventh grade lingo quickly I’m sure this will be an awesome experience, but I need to learn and translate at an accelerated rate. For instance, I need to learn all of those cultural symbols, like when a boy is wearing a scrunchy on his wrist. What does that mean? Evidently, it means that he has a girlfriend. Back in the old days a guy might give his class ring to his “squeeze” and she would wear it on a necklace chain around her neck. These kids entering adolescence do scrunchies, all fluffy and sometimes even pink!

“Yesterday she wouldn’t even share any of her Dorito’s with me. Had to have them all to herself.”

“That’s a killer to a long-term relationship. This new girl, is she more of the understanding and sharing type?”

He nods. “She asked me if I wanted one of her carrot sticks yesterday.”

“That’s a sign!”

All of that situation because of a scrunchy worn on a boy’s wrist! It’s just one of the “new world” learnings I need to cram for.

There’s also the hallway culture, a few crazy-eyed students who look like bulls released from the rodeo pins as they charge into the school in the morning; the espionage emphasis of others who look to sabotage the boy’s locker room with smeared deodorant sticks on the floor and walls; the “bourgeoisie” students who leave their trash for those of the lower class to pick up from the hallways and lunchroom tables; the silent minority who seem to walk in the shadows and not be noticed; the fashionistas who are more current with their wardrobe selections than their homework assignments; and the badge of honor kids who carry their band instruments to let people know that they are committed to horn-blowing and the jocks who wear the same pair of athletic shorts with a different Nike tee shirt everyday.

I will watch and learn, commit to memory new terminology and ways of rephrasing the same thoughts we’ve had, but in new ways. Maybe I’ll start talking in a new language, also, and then when I come home each day and see Carol she’ll tell me to “take a chill pill” and talk to her in our usual “AARP” language!